Horus had come.

His Legion was flooding the embarkation deck in a metallic green tide. Heavy weapons teams were setting up their guns. The first were already firing, targeting the fleeing gunships. A Storm Eagle took a direct hit in its port engine. Before it could adjust to the loss it dropped down and slammed into the hull's inner wall, sending down a fall of burning fuel and wreckage across the deck that went out almost as soon as it ignited.

Horus strode with impunity through the Rout, cutting down the sons of Russ wherever he went. Bodies tumbled head over heels from every strike of his maul. His claw macerated bold warriors into unrecognisable manglings.

The Space Wolves were quick to respond. Bjorn caught a screamed order tagged with a jarl's code ident. He didn't catch who it was, and their voice was scrambled by vox interference.

'Take down the Warmaster! Kill Horus!'

The Vlka's own fire support teams drew a bead on the Warmaster. Dozens, then hundreds of heavy weapons slammed into him. Horus leaned into their fire like a man braving a blizzard. Behind the dazzling light, Bjorn saw the wound in the Warmaster's side, wide and deep. A spear cut.

Russ had hurt him, after all.

More weapons drew a bead on the Warmaster, venting every method of destruction devised by human science. Bjorn saw beyond the glare of conjoining energy beams that the blasts were not hitting the Warmaster, but stopping short of him, as if they were kept back by an energy shield. No man-portable aegis could withstand that level of punishment. The force of shell, plasma and las-light bent around Horus, the boil-over annihilating his treacherous sons for metres either side. 'Maleficarum,' whispered Bjorn. It was the only explanation. In the last few years he had seen many terrible things, but only on Prospero had he seen a display of raw magic as potent as this.

A hand pulled back on his pauldron. Bjorn resisted, arrested by the sight of the Warmaster coming to slay his king. He had to see. The ramp started to close. Lift-off thrusts shot out pillars of fire, grav-impellers distorting his sense of mass. The Stormbird began to rise.

Horus trudged on towards the escaping vessel, his daemonic face, uncovered even in the airless deck, roaring his anger. His fury was a physical assault, pushing at Bjorn's soul painfully. Within the shimmering wall of power protecting the Warmaster, Bjorn saw wicked things whose words were all too clear despite the lack of air to carry them.

Something was burrowing into his head, urging him to leap from the ascending Stormbird. He tightly gripped the pistons of the rising ramp.

'No,' he said. 'No.'